We recently invited two enrollment leaders to join MARKETview’s Alex White for a panel discussion about their experiences and challenges from last cycle — and how they’re using those experiences to strategize for the year ahead.
While we encourage you to watch the full webinar recording, we’ve taken the liberty of compiling three important insights shared by Lauren Jensen, Vice President for Enrollment Strategy at Calvin University; and Donnell Wiggins, Associate Vice President for Strategic Enrollment Management and Dean of Admission at the University of Dayton.
1. “Don’t react, anticipate.” – Lauren Jensen
This piece of wisdom originally came from Jensen’s high school basketball coach, but you can apply the same concepts to meeting your enrollment goals. She described how her team learned to be proactive with their thinking, to be ready for what’s ahead rather than trying to respond to shifts in the marketplace after they occur. Jensen shared how her team has learned to anticipate by looking at the context of why marketplace shifts occur.
“We are always asking the question of, ‘why?’ and understanding the context [of marketplace disruptions],”
-Lauren Jensen
Asking the right questions and understanding why changes occur in the marketplace can inform your team of the bigger picture and help you predict what’s coming next. It’s also important for keeping your senior leadership team and cabinet members up to date with what’s happening and why certain strategic changes need to occur. Jensen described how her team begins planning for the year ahead as early as possible, and the questions they ask themselves to anticipate the next cycle.
“We kick off in April before our May 1 decision deadline,” Jensen said. “We talk a lot about, ‘What are our major goals? What are we seeing out of the cycle? What do we want to plan for next year? What do we know is coming?’ FAFSA was one last year. You never know it all, but you have to keep moving and keep preparing for what’s next.”
2. “Take care of your team.” – Donnell Wiggins
It would be difficult to recruit next year’s class of students by yourself, that’s why you need the support of your enrollment team. Wiggins emphasizes the importance of looking out for the well-being of your team during difficult times and setting them up for success.
“When you had plan A, B, C, D, E, and all those plans got wrecked, you have to change your perspective on, ‘How do I best equip my team with the tools they need in order to help families?’” Wiggins said.
Supporting your team members means being flexible, changing your plans to fit the challenges of the cycle, and providing them with the tools they need to reach your university’s goals. Wiggins shared how having access to MARKETview’s comparative data helps his team adapt to disruptions.
“It’s about having the humility to say, ‘I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I can adapt based on what’s happening in the moment,” Wiggins said.
“And that’s where having better real-time data comes in. We have the benefit of working with hundreds of schools rather than a single campus.”
-Donnell Wiggins
3. “Try to identify — what are the things we know?” – Lauren Jensen
Taking stock of what is already a known factor for your team can be invaluable when there are so many unknowns throughout the cycle. Jensen highlighted how identifying the established priorities of their university helps her team figure out the next move they need to make.
“There’s always competing priorities; Do you want headcount? Do you want net tuition revenue? Do you want a class that retains? Do you want diversity?” Jensen said. “So, we’re able to say, ‘This is the institution we are, and where we’re at in this moment, and this is where we’re trying to go.’”
After the disruptions caused by the FAFSA delays, Jensen’s team had to shift their plans so they could still meet their enrollment goals. Her team asked themselves some essential questions to establish a baseline of knowledge on how these disruptions would change their plans, and how to pivot.
“We had to say, ‘What’s different without FAFSAs? What do we know about the makeup of the pool? And does that change the strategy?” Jensen said.
“What insights can we get from MARKETview to adapt?”
-Lauren Jensen
During an uncertain cycle, it’s difficult to plan ahead. But if you take the lessons learned from last year, like the ones Jensen and Wiggins have shared, you can insulate you and your team from the next disruption hitting the market.
The Proactive Enrollment Leader: Applying Lessons Learned to the Upcoming Cycle
Watch a forward-focused panel discussion featuring two enrollment leaders who are acting with purpose by using lessons learned from the past to inform their strategy and planning for the upcoming cycle.
Watch the Recording
Thanks for your interest in these key insights — we hope the information shared here will help you navigate the challenges of next cycle. For additional perspectives from our expert panel, be sure to check out the full webinar recording.